Strategic Searching on the Web
Strategic Web Searching
- Clearly define your research topic/question (Write it down)
- Choose keywords (usually 2-4 words)
- Add some helper words to refine your search.
- Focus on one side of an issue: Pro, support, con, against
- Find the numbers: Facts, figures, statistics
- Find out what have others have done: Program, system, method, history
- Add a preferred source: gov, edu, museum, national, state, scientific, news
- Apply search strategies to get MORE.
- Try Synonyms: A different word with same meaning
- Use Quotes to search for the exact phrase (these words in this order)
- "White House" instead of White House
- "Declaration of Independence" instead of Declaration of Independence
- Use the minus sign: to remove all sources containing that word
- mango producers –mexico
- animal rights -PETA
- Use OR: to combine several searches
- National Park yosemite OR redwood
- famous church Argentina OR Chile
- Record search terms tried and websites found as you do your research.
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Example Web Search
- Topic/question: What can students do to prevent bullying from happening in schools?
- Keywords: students prevent bullying
- Helper words: against facts statistics program edu gov
- More strategies: none look useful
- Searches to try
- students prevent bullying
- students against bullying
- students prevent bullying program
- students prevent bullying program facts
- students prevent bullying statistics gov
- keep trying combinations until you find what you are looking for
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Example Web Search
- Topic/question: Should football be outlawed because of the risk of head injuries?
- Keywords: football outlawed risk head injuries
- Helper words: against history statistics news scientific
- More strategies:
- quotes "head injury"
- synonym for "head injury" -> concussion
- sort of synonym for football -> NFL
- synonym for outlawed -> banned
- Searches to try
- football "head injury" risk statistics
- NFL concussion statistics
- football banned concussion risk
- news facts "head injury" football
- concussion risk football scientific
- keep trying combinations until you find what you are looking for
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Example web search
- Topic/question: What do most of the people in the world eat to get protein?
- Keywords: people eat world protein
- Helper words: facts history scientific
- More strategies: sort of synonym for eat ->diet
- synonym for "people in the world" -> "global population"
- get protein -> protein source
- Searches to try
- world protein source facts
- "global population" protein source
- world diet protein scientific
- world diet protein gov facts
- keep trying combinations until you find what you are looking for
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